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0 pointsjeffiel2y ago0 comments

At this phase we have to talk both to the business and to developers. Only talking to developers isn’t savvy or smart. AWS etc do the same thing.

We can have good APIs and make a compelling case to the business why they should pay for it.

I agree that sometimes our engagement messaging isn’t quite right for developers. As a developer, I prefer more technical and matter of fact marketing of products. But interestingly, as a CEO, sometimes I need companies to simplify the message especially in a domain I’m not an expert in and don’t want to become an expert in!

For the entrepreneurs in the HN community, it’s talking features vs benefits. Developers love what a product does in a literal sense because they’re close to the implementation. Business folks tend to look for the benefit statements more as they’re not as close to the implementation. It’s a like to walk when you’re talking to both!

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rsync2y ago

"At this phase we have to talk both to the business and to developers."

How can I send my wife a grocery list, with a twiml bin, and not register a business use-case and provide a US EIN for A2P 10DLC (along with example messages and opt-out mechanisms) ?

Haha - just kidding.

I know I can't do that.

... and as long as we have you here, what, pray tell, will Twilio do with the pages and pages of use-cases and howtos for home automation, personal alerts, person to person messaging, self-reminders, email forwards - like this, for instance:

https://www.twilio.com/blog/build-adhd-lifehack-tools-python...

Will you just remove all of those ?

Because they are impossible.

There are no hobbyist uses of Twilio after July.

yed2y ago

For what it’s worth, this is driven by federal regulations and carrier requirements, not by Twilio itself.

Corrado2y ago

Yes, but the Twilio implementation of this has been very frustrating. The process is (needlessly?) complex and has changed several times since it's inception. The last time I had to adjust our 10DLC configuration I was forced to use the Twilio API instead of the web console.

An API is great if you have to do something hundreds of times or automate a process, but I had >10 sub-accounts to update and doing it through the API made it much more difficult. I feel like Twilio really dropped the ball here and could have done much more to make the 10DLC process more manageable.

ElFitz2y ago

I as wondering about the exact same thing. Sad to learn it’s just not an option anymore.

pkiv2y ago

(Former Twilion here)

I’ve always described this as “selling features vs selling solutions”. As a startup grows, the buying persona changes. Startups that sell to developers do best when they’re selling features, whereas a product manager/CEO is shopping for a solution (like increasing customer engagement). A neat thing I’ve noticed is that at one point, almost every B2B company will add a “Solutions” page to their website to highlight that.

Wrote about it more here: https://memos.hawkhill.ventures/p/selling-features-then-solu...)

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akg_672y ago

> At this phase we have to talk both to the business and to developers. Only talking to developers isn’t savvy or smart. AWS etc do the same thing.

AWS does it well for both, may be learn from them. Twilio outbound communication has turned completely undecipherable (too much marketspeak) for both business and developers. The billboards in Miguel's blog post sums up the stark contrast very well. There need to be a balance.

Just an anecdotal data point, recently a company was interested in integrating internet voice calling systems, having used Twilio about 8 years ago, I suggested them to check out Twilio. The company mentioned they couldn't figure what Twilio does and doesn't and in the end went with the solution being pushed by local Telco.

nasduia2y ago

I'd be interested to know how you think the business folks should judge the benefit statements without the detail that they could run by experienced developers? Surely they get a lot of vapourware pitches all the time.

johnwheeler2y ago

This sounds reasonable and reads much better than glossing over OPs post. Hard to argue against.

swyx2y ago

definitely. my most quoted dev marketing tweet is about me constantly having to relearn “"Talk benefits, not features" doesn't work!” in the early stage devtool startup playpen i operate in, but at your stage you have multiple equally impt constituencies.

whenever i’m caught between a thesis and an antithesis i try to look for a synthesis to break through the apparent conflict. perhaps TWLO can find messaging that does the same. it feels like Msft is doing this well by essentially having a different group of brands that are keenly developer oriented, with Azure on the backend filling in all the enterprise messaging.

moneywoes2y ago

Link to tweet?